A Kentucky food coloring manufacturer made a series of missteps and failed to stop a runaway chemical reaction that killed two workers and caused millions of dollars in damage to the plant and surrounding communities in 2024.
That’s the conclusion of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which this week released its final report on the Givaudan Sense Color explosion in Louisville.
“This tragic incident was a disaster waiting to happen,” Steve Owens, chairman of the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), said in a statement. “The reactor’s pressure relief system was not designed to relieve the pressure of such a reaction, and Givaudan was not aware of the possibility of a runaway reaction.”
The CSB, an independent, non-regulatory federal agency investigating the incident, explained that the reactor used to produce caramel coloring for food was moved to the site from an old facility. In 2021, the reactor was retrofitted and installed at the Louisville facility.
But the board said the renovations were not as safe as they should have been.
The control room where the two workers who died in the November 2024 explosion were located just 40 feet from the reactor was not built to withstand explosions. The 2,000-pound reactor shell flew nearly the length of a football field and landed on a house. Other debris was shot into surrounding neighborhoods.
“The company did not understand that the sugar ingredients used in the caramel coloring process posed serious reaction hazards,” the report states. “As a result, critical safeguards, including emergency rescue systems, were unable to prevent this catastrophic reactor rupture.”
The CSB report explains that, among other problems, an exhaust pipe from Reactor 6 failed, causing abnormal increases in pressure and temperature. This results in a runaway reaction of the caramel coloring sugar component.
Sugar is generally thought of as a fairly bland, tasty substance. But the American Chemical Society explains that it can be highly reactive under certain conditions and could cause large-scale fires or explosions. Perhaps the most famous sugar refinery explosion was the 2008 explosion at the Imperial Sugar Factory in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which killed 14 people and injured 38 others, CSB reported at the time.
The CSB said the Givaudan Louisville explosion caused a total of $30 million in damage to the factory and $10 million in damage to nearby homes and businesses. The food coloring factory has since been closed and dismantled.
The CSB has recommended that Givaudan, a Swiss company that makes flavours, colors and fragrance products, ensure that new production plants are built away from residential areas. Companies should also conduct third-party reactivity testing of sugar ingredients, conduct facility hazard analyses, develop comprehensive process safety management systems, improve emergency pressure relief systems, establish operator alarms, and train workers on safe operating limits.
Additionally, the committee reiterated its previous recommendation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration increase federal oversight of chemical hazards from catastrophic reactions. CSB has urged EPA to revise its accidental release prevention requirements to explicitly address reactive hazards. The committee also again recommended that OSHA expand the Process Safety Management (PSM) standard to better address reactive hazards.
These recommendations may be unlikely to be realized as the federal government continues to cut funding and enforcement efforts for EPA, OSHA, and other federal agencies.
CSB Board members are appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. The commission explained that it does not issue citations or fines but rather makes safety recommendations to companies, industry groups, labor groups and regulatory agencies such as OSHA and the EPA.
The full report is available here.
Above: The damaged Givaudan Color Sense factory in Louisville in 2024. (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan)
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